Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(71)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Kinich? Are you there?”

“Yes. I am glad to hear the news.” His voice didn’t sound happy. He sounded distressed. He sounded like I’d told him we’d lost.

“Kinich, where are you?”

“Is Cimil still there with you?” he asked.

Why did he want to know?

“She’s at your house, staring at a wall, I think. What’s going on?”

“If we do not speak again, I wish you to know that…”—his voice broke up.

“What? I can’t hear you! Speak up!” I walked through the cheering crowd, out the exit into the hallway. “There. I can hear. What do you want me to know?”

No response.

I pulled the phone from my ear. Call Ended flashed across the screen.

“Who was it?” Zac leaned in the doorway.

I looked at my feet. A cold sensation filling me with dread hit like an avalanche. “Kinich. But we got cut off.”

I dialed him back, but got a busy signal.

“Do not worry, Penelope. I’m sure he will call back.”

I wasn’t so sure. Something told me that the call wasn’t him checking in. No, he sounded like a man saying…goodbye. Really saying goodbye.

I followed Zac back inside, and noticed that not everyone was cheering. Helena’s eyes stayed glued to the screen.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Niccolo and Guy never came out of the Maaskab’s portal,” she muttered.

Emma froze at my side. “There must be some mistake.”

Helena shook her head. “No mistake. One of Niccolo’s men, a vampire, attempted to sift inside to look for them. It’s closed.”

Oh God. No.

CHAPTER 38

The next thirty-four hours were a bittersweet whirlwind. I’d never felt so polarized in my entire life. Our army—the Uchben soldiers, ten gods, and the vampire army—easily took down thousands of evil vampire-Scabs as they helplessly flailed on the ground while their vampire blood died.

Reports then began pouring in from all over the world of Obscuros dropping in their tracks, turning to dust.

Andrus explained that whoever had been their maker, two things were absolutely certain: first, he or she was an Ancient One, an original of the six first vampires; and second, that Ancient One had been killed.

So who killed the Ancient One? How? No one knew, and frankly, we didn’t care.

It was the miracle we needed. The added bonus being that for any regular Maaskab who still lived, they no longer had the upper hand without their vampire blood. They would no longer be able to sift or hide “in the spaces.”

Fate. It was fate, everyone said.

But victory did not come without a price. We’d lost over one thousand Uchben and vampires in those first twenty minutes. Had the “miracle” not occurred, our entire army of twenty thousand would’ve been wiped out in a few hours.

We got off lucky. Except for Emma and Helena.

Of the two hundred who sifted inside the Maaskab portal, Guy, Niccolo, and forty vampires never came out. The Uchben team in the Control Room had carefully analyzed the satellite footage and confirmed it.

Even worse, we’d learned it wasn’t only the Maaskab portals that had been sealed shut. The entire sifting dimension had somehow closed. Not one of our vampires could sift. They said it was as if the “spaces” had been filled with cement. Impenetrable.

Emma and Helena were devastated, but, like the strong women they were, they kept it together and focused on finding a way to rescue the men, as did everyone else.

And now it was my turn to face my worst nightmare.

“Ready?” Zac asked.

I stared at the morning sky and stretch of flat desert. No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready. But there was no getting around it.

The Uchben and vampires who still stood after the battle had had their hands full dealing with the injured and taking inventory of the dead from both sides. The only thing we knew was that there were approximately two hundred humans—Payals we assumed—coming our way. The Uchben medics in the field had said they were physically okay. But mentally? We didn’t have a clue. Was my mother one of them? No one knew that either, because the women weren’t able to speak.

Emma, Helena, and Zac stood at my side inside the small, glass-windowed room attached to the hangar. We watched quietly as the camouflaged carrier touched down over the dusty landing strip at Camp Uchben.

I tried to maintain my composure, to be strong like Emma and Helena, but I had to face facts: I was at my tipping point. Who could blame me? Watching as the world’s fate had hung in the balance, finding out I was pregnant, Kinich’s leaving, my becoming something I didn’t want to be—the Sun Goddess—and now I was supposed to pretend I was all right if my mother, the one person in the world who really loved me, my only real family…I was supposed to pretend I was okay if she wasn’t on that plane?

No. I wouldn’t be okay. I just…wouldn’t. A person can only handle so much.

Please, please be on the plane. Please be on the plane. I closed my eyes tightly as I heard the engines wind down.

“They’re coming out,” Helena whispered. “There are so many.”

I opened my eyes and felt overwhelmed with sadness. Their eyes were so empty, their expressions so bleak and forlorn. What had those monsters done to them? God, my heart cried out for each and every one while my eyes desperately searched the line of women in tattered clothing, marching toward the hangar. Soldiers and medics rushed to their sides and began taking them to the underground hospital.

But the nameless faces continued passing. “She’s not here.” I turned away and began to sob. I couldn’t bear it.

Zac wrapped his arms around me, and I buried my face in his chest. I wished it were Kinich, but it wasn’t, and now I hated him for it. I hated him for leaving me to deal with everything on my own. I hated him for not loving me enough to stay with me. I hated the Maaskab for robbing me of my world. I never knew there could be so much hate inside me.

Zac stroked the back of my hair. “Don’t lose hope, Penelope. Another plane with more humans is still on the way.”

“I don’t effing believe it!” Emma darted out the door and launched herself on top of a large man who had been walking with the Payals into the hangar. She began beating the fallen man in the face, “You bastard! I’ll kill you!”

Two soldiers rushed in and pulled her off. With her red hair a wild mess, I couldn’t see her face, but I sensed she was getting ready to unleash her Payal power.